


Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

by Sloane



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chapter specific warnings included, Dead Jonah Magnus, Diverges After Episode 92, Elias Was Aware of Everything His Body Was Used For (Including Brutal Pipe Murder), Lots of Cursing (OG Elias Deserves a Treat), M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Psychological Trauma, Recreational Drug Use (marijuana), past lonelyeyes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sloane/pseuds/Sloane
Summary: Jonah Magnus is gone, his spirit dragged into oblivion by a spiteful ex-lover, and Elias Bouchard is back in control of his body for the first time in decades.All he wants in the aftermath is to slip away from the Institute without anyone seeing him, which seems nigh impossible in the stronghold of the Eye.But then a new door appears.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Michael Shelley, Original Elias Bouchard/Michael Shelley
Comments: 19
Kudos: 43





	1. Emergency Exit

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Losing What You Never Knew You Had](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843451) by [PistachioWritings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PistachioWritings/pseuds/PistachioWritings). 
  * Inspired by [A Kiss Before You Go to Hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25078135) by [Sloane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sloane/pseuds/Sloane). 



> A new attempt at a semi-sequel to A Kiss Before You Go to Hell, the difference is it’s after Episode 92 (so Melanie and Basira are signed on), Elias remembers everything, and there’s quite a mess to clean up.
> 
> As for the real inspiration, Losing What You Never Knew You Had (which you really must read), I felt a powerful need to build upon that lovely bit of angst.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias reunites with an old co-worker/crush... sort of. It’s complicated, but that’s his life now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Specific Warnings  
> -panic attacks  
> -references of past non-con (Elias’s body used for sex acts and murder against his will) and involuntary arousal thinking of it  
> -reference to brutal pipe murder  
> -breakdown/sobbing

Elias sits in his office—no, not his office, Jonah Magnus’s office—and tries to breathe. Funny how it goes. Decades spent with no control over his body, and the first thing he gets to do is endure a panic attack. That was what the bloody weed used to be for, because no doctor in the eighties or nineties believed a bloke who ‘had it all’ could also have anxiety for some fucking reason—and if ever he needed something to take the edge off, now was the goddamn time. 

Yeah, whatever, self-medicating was unhealthy, of course, but he just spent twenty years trapped inside his own goddamn head, watching Jonah... Elias can’t even think about it.

Elias pulls ‘his’ silk tie with its goddamn eye pin loose. It made him feel like he was choking.

Breathe. Focus on counting. Stare at the sodding ink blotter he used to fixate on whenever Jonah’s eyes passed that way, because who seriously fucking still needs an ink blotter in this day and age? Posh twats with delusions of grandeur, that’s who. His arsehole father had one just like it. Elias picks it up, because he can finally do that now. It’s old, definitely an antique—like a lot of stuff in the office—and lobs it across the room.

It feels good to be back in control of his own body, even if his inaugural actions are childish. What annoys him more than anything is that it was impossible to be imprisoned in the back of his own head, always staring out, without picking up a lot of second-hand knowledge from Jonah Fucking Magnus. Take ‘inaugural action,’ for instance. No way the old Elias—i.e. him, the real one—would ever fucking _say_ that. He might write it in a paper, yes, but never utter it in everyday conversation. Too much fear of sounding like the old man. The fact dear old dad hated that Elias sounded so ‘coarse’ and ‘common’ was all the more reason to play up the brainless stoner act. James Wright AKA Jonah ‘Ooh-Don’t-Let Terminus-Get-Me’ Magnus saw right through it, of course, not that Elias stooped that low during his initial job interview. 

Granted, no accomplishments or accolades—nor anything inside Elias’s pretty little—head mattered at all. Jonah Magnus was only interested in his body. The moment James Wright stopped being useful five years after Elias’s hiring, Jonah promptly swapped out and ruined the best years of Elias’s life. Worse, he turned him into exactly the kind of man his father always wanted. Small mercy that daddy dearest is long dead now. Jonah dragged Peter Lukas to the funeral, because of course he did. Much as Elias’s father went on and on about the family legacy, it turned out there was nothing to inherit. He went broke keeping up appearances, desperately hoping his son would fix everything after he was gone, as so many fathers do. Jonah Magnus didn’t care. He had the Lukas family to float him money, but the Bouchard name was still nice.

Now Elias truly has nothing except a well-tended body he has a pressing urge to ruin with a smoke.

He rubs his face with his hands. God, he’s so fucking old now. Okay, middle-aged, but still. Twenty years gone, vanished like the spirit of the body thief. Elias still didn’t understand what happened, but who was he to question it? He was free. Still a little chilled from whatever happened, but free.

“Hurray,” he mutters, voice devoid of enthusiasm. The first word he’s spoken for real in years, and it’s sarcastic. Off to a jolly great start.

Elias cradles his head in his hands. While he’s at it, he messes up his hair as much as he can. It’s a hard-won fight against the awful pomade shit Jonah used, but he’s fine with looking disheveled and a little unhinged for now. It fits.

He feels like an entire encyclopedia was shoved inside his head along with all the extra information about the Fears he could really do without. But whatever, the latent ability to kill at pub trivia—no, don’t think about killing, just don’t—doesn’t automatically make him a posh twat on the same level as Jonah or his father. Nor did second-hand knowledge of the forbidden—what an eye rolling, heh, word for it—make him anything like Jonah Magnus and his nightmare Rolodex of ‘friends’.

He might be cracking up just a little after all. Not as if he can see a therapist for this shit.

The real question is if Jonah used his hands to commit murder, did it make Elias equally guilty? Or is he as much an unwitting tool as a pipe or shotgun?

Yeah, that’s what he was—a tool.

Elias utters a hysterical little laugh.

Turns out he picked up a lot of trauma with all that unwanted knowledge, kind of like auditing a uni course where the professor occasionally took time out to brutally murder a fellow arsehole academic, or hard fuck a rival/patron on his own goddamn desk—which Elias is still sitting at, by the way.

He needs out of this office. He needs out of these clothes. A long, hot shower where he can sob in peace sounds like a good start. The trick is sneaking out of the Institute without running into anyone else.

Elias turns the computer back on. Thankfully the recent paranormal activity didn’t fry it completely, though the room’s still a bit chill after... whatever that was that happened. Ghosts or something. Whatever.

Elias starts by sending an e-mail to everyone stating he’s going to be taking some personal time. Copying Jonah’s manner of speech is simple enough. He’s passively watched him write countless memos before, after all. Elias hates carrying on the ruse when all he really wants to do is write ‘I’m out, suck it.’ Maybe with a little smiley face. Given recent events with Leitner in the tunnels—nope, nope, _stop_ —the timing will look suspicious, but it’s not like he’s leaving the country. They think _Jon_ did it.

Damn it, Jonah.

Elias has to help Jon. Get him out of this mess Jonah orchestrated. Somehow. But first he has to help himself.

A horrible feeling of dread curls in his gut when Elias remembers Peter Lukas is included in that ‘all’ chain. But Peter rarely checks his e-mail, text messages, voicemail or anything. He’ll probably be at sea for a few more weeks at least. Elias has time. If he stays busy, he can keep from thinking about all the things Jonah used his body for with Peter—family funerals were the least of it. He’s more than a little horrified to find himself getting aroused as one of their more recent encounters comes to mind, but the thought of standing over Jurgen Leitner with a pipe nips that in the bud right quick.

Elias exhales a shaky sigh of relief, glad he’s not quite _that_ fucked up after all these years, only now he feels sick remembering the way the old man’s skull caved in after so many blows. And the _sound_ it made...

Okay, enough.

He rises from the desk. He needs to get away from this damn building and all the awful things that occurred in, around, and beneath it. Maybe then he can think clearly. The trick is getting out unseen after the stunt Jonah just pulled, because he knows damn well the entire Archives staff wants to murder him. No way are they going to believe Elias if he explains, they’ll just think it yet another cruel mind game. He would, too.

Elias pauses at the door to his office—no, Jonah’s office, remember—feeling like he’s forgetting something important, besides the fact nothing in the room belongs to him, but the desperate need to get as far from the Institute as possible spurs him onward. 

That’s his mistake.

“Wait, shit, _no!”_

Elias turns around, but it’s too late. His hand swipes at thin air. The door is gone. Instead of stepping out to emerge next to Rosie’s desk, he’s blundered into the middle of a hallway that stretches endlessly in both directions. The dim lighting encourages moving toward the flickering lights spaced along the ceiling. Another, much brighter light further down the hall falsely promises a way out if he just keeps moving. Elias takes a step, and the luridly patterned carpet squelches beneath his wingtip shoe.

He recoils. Nope, none of that. He’ll just stay right where he is, thanks. 

Always double check the doors first, that’s what he was forgetting. The Distortion hadn’t laid a trap for him in years, but it was Jonah Magnus that Michael fucked with in the past, not him. It knew the truth about Elias—or rather, Michael knew the truth. 

Early on, when Jonah hadn’t quite cemented his hold, Elias had wrested control back long enough to run and reach out to the one person he cared enough about to tell—Michael Shelley. Elias didn’t know what was happening then, didn’t understand who Jonah Magnus was or why he was trapped inside his own body while someone else played puppeteer—never mind all the shit leading up to it with the panopticon and eye gouging—all Elias knew was he had to at least tell Michael he loved him before control was ripped away again.

He couldn’t. Jonah stopped him before he could get the most crucial word out, blaming his strange behavior on the stress of the new job, and left Michael utterly gobsmacked over what just happened. 

If only Michael had let it go, left well enough alone, maybe that could have been it. Jonah wouldn’t have broken him like he would later do to so many others. But Michael cared about Elias, too. He pressed the issue, and in exchange for annoying him, Jonah crushed him like a bug. 

Jonah told Michael two truths and a lie, like that damn party game, with no chance to guess which one was the lie. Jonah said he wasn’t Elias, that Elias loved Michael, and that Elias was dead. 

The knowledge broke Michael, making it that much easier for Emma to entangle him in her webs. Between her manipulation and the coldly polite demeanor Elias adopted afterwards, acting as if the revelation never happened, it was easy for poor Michael to delude himself into thinking he somehow imagined all the good times with Elias, that the man with the smile that never reached his eyes was always the reality. 

Hell, after some searching leading him to the worst kind of hysterical anti-drug sites, he really thought it late onset weed psychosis—never mind it was Elias who showed Michael how to shotgun a hit.

Why didn’t Elias just ask to make out like a normal person? He almost moves to punch the nearest wall, but in the Distortion’s domain it’s liable to not let go if he tries any sort of violence on the ‘worst hits of the 80s all layered together’ decor.

That wasn’t the end of it with Michael, either—oh, no.

Many years later, after Gertrude Robinson fed Michael Shelley to the Spiral, something shaped like him emerged in Jonah Magnus’s office to remark upon the irony that it _also_ wore the face of another. Jonah threatened to peer deep into its twisted core until it unraveled entirely, leaving nothing behind. It retreated, laughing as it went, but Elias always wondered if Michael retroactively knew Jonah lied once it became the Distortion. 

Can’t kid a kidder. Can’t very well lie to It Is Lies. Hell, Elias could ask it right now if he wants.

He doesn’t.

Elias doesn’t want to run, either. He’s gleaned enough from the statements Jonah occasionally perused to know it’s futile. The walls press in around him, then exhale with disappointment as Elias just stands there. He took the door. It’s his move now. That’s how this game works.

Elias throws his arms out. It seems like his hands should brush the ugly wallpaper with the gesture, narrow and claustrophobic as the corridor feels, but it’s as if the walls pull away just in time to avoid letting that happen.

“Right!” Elias yells, letting his hands fall. “What, then?” 

“You wanted a quick exit,” a painfully familiar voice replies very close to his ear. “I graciously provided you one.”

Elias shrieks and spins around. Jonah Magnus was a master of restraining his natural reactions to fear. Elias Bouchard is not.

Michael’s echoing laughter hurts, and not just because it’s so familiar yet so wrong. It’s also much too close, much too loud. The noise vibrates in Elias’s teeth and up through his sinuses, making his eyes water uncontrollably. It stops only when he’s afraid his skull might shatter from within, tapering off into a tired sigh that’s also so very Michael.

Elias stops clutching his head, not that it helped, and wipes his eyes with as much dignity as he can muster. Part of him wants to keep crying, another wants to hug Michael despite his better judgment, and yet another wants to start screaming and never stop—but that’s not necessarily Michael’s fault. The internal deadlock means he ends up just staring at Michael.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Elias says, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice. He’s not good at this, damn it. He’s not fucking brave. He’s just tired. Lucky for him exhaustion takes the edge off the terror.

“No I did not,” Michael agrees. “But perhaps it’s your choice.”

“Are you... are you going to eat me?” Elias glances around. The walls aren’t pressing in quite so closely. The nearest ominously flickering light bursts, deepening the shadows. “Is that what this is about?”

Michael laughs, but it’s not as loud or headache inducing as before. It’s quieter, more subdued—maybe even a little sad, but it could be Elias is reading too much into things.

“I just ate,” it says. “You’re safe.”

Elias eyes it incredulously. Michael stares back with an impassive smile on its face. It never really stops smiling, but it’s fake. Not like before—the way Michael’s earnest beaming could light up a room. Remembering the way he would talk animatedly with his hands—all the while staring at this twisted facsimile of him, with its impossibly long fingers dangling limply at the Distortion’s sides—makes a painful knot form in Elias’s chest. 

He won’t cry. He won’t. Not in front of this thing wearing his would-be boyfriend’s body like an ill-fitting fancy dress costume. Michael would have said yes. Elias doesn’t know why it suddenly occurs to him, but it makes him sick to think of it—all these thoughts of what might have been.

“Can you just let me go, then?” Elias whispers. “Please?”

“ _Wellllllll_...” Michael folds its hands together, the tips of its knife fingers touching its mouth as it considers, and there’s the cruel imitation of the way Michael Shelley would ponder things in the gesture. Elias isn’t sure if it’s doing this on purpose, or if it simply can’t help itself, but it hurts just the same. Its lips split into a broad grin. Too broad. Its teeth are too sharp. Too bright. They flicker like a glitching display screen.

“I suppose I can. But _only_ since you asked so nicely.” It folds itself in an impossibly exaggerated bow, its face coming too close to Elias instead of looming large over him. “So, where will it be?”

The knot in Elias’s chest bursts into acidic panic that floods his entire system with adrenaline, making him shake. Yeah, where the hell _can_ he go? He doesn’t have a home, not exactly. Jonah Magnus destroyed everything that was Elias Bouchard immediately after taking over his body, selling his flat and everything in it. He doesn’t want to go to the address on his ID—he fucking hates everything on that little piece of plastic, up to and including the smug cat smirk in the photo—but Elias can’t think of anywhere else.

“His place,” Elias sighs. “Fuck it. Why not? Maybe I’ll burn it all down for good measure.”

“And maybe I’ll watch,” Michael titters, clapping its hands excitedly in a way that defies all logic.

A door appears. Elias steps through without hesitation. Trap or not, he just wants _out_.

Surprisingly, the Distortion did as Elias asked—no funny business.

The living room of Jonah Magnus’s Georgian townhouse is exactly as he left it that morning, though ‘living room’ is a bit of a misnomer here. The place is like a museum or an interior decorating magazine spread, everything perfectly in order, nothing to suggest anyone actually inhabits it—the cleaning service sees to that. Spend enough money and no one will ever know you eat or do laundry or use the bloody toilet just like all the other plebs. Elias takes off his suit jacket and throws it on the nearest chair. Better.

Michael’s echoing chuckle startles him.

“You’re still here?”

Michael tilts its head like a stray puppy that followed Elias home. “Did I not say I would watch?”

“I’m not burning the place down with me in it!” Elias exclaims. “Besides, it’s not like I have anywhere else I can go right now.”

“Hotels exist, don’t they?”

Elias shakes his head. “Reminds me too much of work trips. Expense reports and shit. I _just_ escaped all that...” He takes a breath. “Still, thanks for the shortcut, I guess.”

But Michael has already drifted away from him. It’s looking at one of Jonah’s many antique paintings adorning the walls. “His taste was atrocious, wasn’t it? So dreary.”

“I don’t think you get to comment,” Elias scoffs, collapsing on the couch. “That carpet pattern of yours was just... yikes.”

“That’s the _point_.” It crosses the room in a single stride to loom over Elias from behind the couch. “It’s also apart of me.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Michael murmurs its acknowledgment, if not its acceptance, of his apology. Its fingers curl around the back of the couch as it leans over, its long blond hair falling down around Elias’s face. He considers squirming away, maybe even sliding off the couch and onto the floor to escape, but he’s no young stoner capable of rolling around like that anymore. Doing so would pull a muscle at the very least.

“That’s not all that’s part of me,” Michael says, its eyes spiraling through a full spectrum of colors as Elias, frozen in place, nervously stares up at it. “But you can see that in my face, can’t you?”

Elias nods very slightly.

“I don’t like having a face,” Michael adds. “I especially don’t like having _this_ face. I was thinking of changing it, but then you happened.”

“What?”

“Shut up and _think_.” Michael’s hair shifts so it’s somehow hanging in a solid curtain that shuts out the rest of the room. It’s just Elias and Michael staring at each other now. Everything else might as well not exist. “I know you always were smarter than you let on. If things were different, the Spiral could have had you.” 

A host of emotions flicker across Michael’s face, painful to look at in the dark theater its created. “But the Eye still has its hooks in too deep.” It snickers. “Ah, and _his_ eyes are still in you, too.”

Elias grimaces and turns his head away. He really didn’t need a reminder.

“If you swooped in hoping to mark me, I hate to disappoint. I’m sole property of Beholding. Sorry.”

Shit. Speaking of marks, he’s going to have to do something about everything Jonah set in motion. It’s bad enough Elias couldn’t do anything about the worms. Or Sasha.

Elias blinks as something occurs to him, the horror of it hitting him like a smack to the face. Michael just stares—waiting, grinning, knowing he’ll get there eventually.

“You’re _not_ him,” Elias insists, as if saying it aloud will make his sudden realization go away. “Michael Shelley is dead. You look like him, sound like him, but— _no_. No fuckin’ way. Stop it.”

That last bit was more to Beholding. He doesn’t want to just Know things, damn it.

“Ah, yet someone told Michael Shelley that Elias Bouchard was dead as well,” it retorts. “But a part of him _also_ stubbornly persisted. Funny how that goes. All these parallels between you and I.”

“No.” Elias shudders. He feels sick. “It’s the exact opposite of funny. It sucks for us both.”

Michael’s smile is incredibly unpleasant. “ _Now_ you’re finally getting it.”

Right. He couldn’t expect straight answers from the Distortion, but then it also silently pushed Sasha to figure things out the hard way as well. 

Elias slides out from under Michael—slowly, carefully—and sits up properly. Michael rests its arms on the back of the couch, standing there like they’re just old friends catching up. That knot forms in Elias’s chest again. 

It isn’t fair.

“The real difference between me and you,” Elias insists, pointing to his chest—right where that awful tightness is building anew. “Is that I’m still entirely me. I mean I’m still Elias Bouchard. You’re not.”

Michael laughs. It brings one hand up to serve as a chin rest. “Of course I’m not Elias Bouchard.”

Right. Walked into that one. Just like that damn door. Elias scowls at Michael.

Outside of its hallways, Michael appears mostly human. Worse, it looks just like the Michael Shelley Jonah Magnus barely spared a glance at after that horrible, soul-crushing day early on in Elias’s possession.

Michael looks older, but then so does Elias. Its easy to think of them as both being frozen as the clueless new hires they used to be back in the day, before everything went to hell, but they’re obviously not.

The last time Elias caught a glimpse of Michael through Jonah’s eyes, before Gertrude Robinson dragged him off to an island that didn’t exist off the coast of Russia, Elias remembered thinking how tired and worn down he looked. His tall, lanky build and long blond hair, coupled with the way he smiled and stammered nervously whenever dealing with the likes of Gertrude, gave the illusion he was still a naive young man—until you caught him alone, slumped over a table and looking like he hadn’t slept properly in days, maybe weeks. 

Long before the Spiral took him, Michael Shelley was lying to everyone, himself included. There’s still the faintest shadow of that sad, broken man in the Distortion’s face, despite the smile that splits into a grin as Elias peers at it searchingly. At least in the real world the expression is limited to the confines of Michael’s face.

“You don’t get trapped inside your own head for decades and emerge unscathed,” Michael practically purrs. “I can smell the trauma on you like a fine cologne.”

Elias rolls his eyes. “What, Ode du Existential Nightmare?”

“I’d call it something pithier.” Michael leans in to sniff him. “Like _Gouge_.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself.”

Michael withdraws, cackling. A bright yellow door is waiting for it in the huge, centuries old fireplace. Elias can’t be certain if it was there the entire time or not. 

“It’s been fun,” Michael says, pausing to rest its hand on the doorframe. “But I have places to be, people to eat.”

“I thought you said you ate.”

Michael turns its head just enough to give Elias a sidelong glance and a smirk. “Consider my nature, and also this fun bit of trivia—I can find you anywhere now. At any time. All because you’ve been inside my halls.”

It languidly waves farewell as it steps through the door, its fingers the last thing to disappear through the threshold. Elias lays back down on the couch, stretching out so he can stare at the ceiling.

“Fuck,” he whispers, eyes watering.

“Fuck,” he says again, a little bit louder.

He’s not upset the Distortion played him, that it could drop in on him at any moment. That’s just one more thing on an ever-growing list of shit he’s just going to have to deal with—and there’s far worse things on that list.

Elias grabs a pillow and screams “ _Fuck!”_ into it. He clutches it to his chest as he sobs, years of pent up emotion ripping out of him all at once. He wishes he could believe he was alone for the shameful display as tears and snot run down his face, but he knows how Beholding operates. It watches him, devouring his pain, and it silently waits to see what he’ll do next. 

Jonah Magnus may be gone, but Elias still has his eyes. He can feel the invitation behind them—a pressure, a promise that Beholding’s Power with a capital P can work for anyone who wants it badly enough.

He doesn’t fucking want it.

Elias sniffles and wipes his face with Jonah’s very expensive shirt sleeve, feeling incredibly drained. It’s still early in the day, but he’s so very, very tired.

“Piss off,” he murmurs, eyes sliding closed as he starts to drift off. “I’m not him. He’s _gone_.”

But he knows it can always find a replacement. That was Jonah’s master plan with Jon—marked by every Fear, the key to the Beholding’s Ritual. It could still use him, with or without Jonah Magnus. The groundwork is already laid, and Jon is well on the path to becoming a true Avatar. He’s curious, determined, and above all bloody reckless. It’s a recipe for disaster. Always was.

Elias really has to warn the git before it’s too late. 

But first he needs sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not often I do this but here’s [some closing music](https://youtu.be/1oad-EQyp6M) for this chapter.
> 
> Maybe I’ll build a playlist this go around, too!


	2. Scary Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationship Status: It’s Complicated  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things aren’t quite fully off the rails yet, so this takes place after Episode 94.
> 
> Chapter Specific Warnings:  
> -more vague reference to past non-con  
> -alcohol consumption  
> -reference to murder via the lonely  
> -drug use (marijuana)  
> -non-consensual kissing

Michael was such a lightweight it was adorable. He leaned against Elias on his overstuffed secondhand couch, giggling helplessly as he tried to recount a work anecdote that was some kind of you had to be there story. Elias puffed on the joint and watched Michael struggling to get it together, completely besotted with the man.

He wanted to say something about how he felt, but no, that’d hardly be professional. It was bad enough that having Michael over after to work to ‘blow off steam’ had turned into sharing a joint, even though Elias was trying to cut back. Wright didn’t approve. Somehow Wright always knew even though Elias was careful to make sure there was no trace of the smell on his clothes, nor did his eyes look bloodshot when he went into work. It wasn’t as though he fired up right before he came in, for Christ’s sake. But the old fucker just _knew_. He never outright said anything, but Elias could see the disapproval in his pale, creepy old eyes, and it struck him to the core.

Michael’s laughter died away into a sigh, and Elias forgot all about Wright. 

“What was I saying again?”

“Work sucks,” Elias supplied.

“Too right!”

“Hey,” Elias shifted so he was fully facing Michael. “Have you ever heard of shotgunning?”

“Um, isn’t it illegal to discharge guns within city limits?”

For a second Elias thought Michael was being serious, until he caught on to the glint in his eye and the way he smirked. Elias’s surprised and delighted laugh quickly turned into a coughing fit. Michael panicked and hammered him on the back, apologizing profusely for the terrible joke.

“It’s fine,” Elias croaked. “You’re pretty cool, y’know that?”

“I, um... wow. Okay.” Michael looked away, his cheeks going red. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me ‘cool’ before.” He laughed nervously. “They, er, certainly called me plenty of other things back in school, but never that.”

“Well, I’m saying it now. You’re cool. Totally cool.” Elias put a hand on Michael’s knee, drawing his attention back. “So you wanna try it?” His turn to blush. “Shotgunning, I mean!”

Michael nodded, his eyes huge. “Sure. Yeah. Let’s.”

“Right.” Elias leaned closer. “It goes like this...”

Why didn’t he just ask to kiss? That’s what they were practically doing. 

Cowardice, mostly. Elias had the worst luck with relationships. Plus a work thing was probably doomed to failure, anyway.

Probably? Try definitely. The Head Archivist was always dragging her assistants all over the world for god knew what reasons, and the Head of the Institute himself had Elias on the fast track for promotion—though he was taking his sweet time with it despite that promise, leaving Elias languishing in the same position where he started. Neither really had time for romance, especially not in a place like the Magnus Institute. Keeping it a secret would be impossible, Elias knew it.

So instead Elias stole these little moments after work, where he didn’t feel so closely watched. His face and Michael’s were very close. He could see Michael’s watery blue eyes wavering, see how bloodshot they were from the weed already. Elias wondered what he was thinking. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

“You ready?”

Michael nodded eagerly.

The smoke Elias exhaled didn’t not pass neatly into Michael’s mouth like an indirect kiss—as it actually happened on the day he introduced him to shotgunning a toke. The smoke billowed outwards, obscuring Michael’s face, filling the room in an impossibly large quantity. Elias tried to clear it away by waving his hand, but it was everywhere. Hopeless. It turned cold as the quality of the smoke changed. 

He recognized that briny smell, the way the fog clung to his clothes like it was trying to drag him down.

The Lonely.

Elias jolts awake with a gasp.

He’s no longer alone in the flat. 

Too bloody ironic, given the way Peter makes his entrance. The fog clears as he steps inside. Elias sits up, clutching the pillow defensively as he glares at Jonah’s ex-husband. 

Their marital status changed like the tides, but he’s lucky to have caught them on the outs when Jonah got expelled—otherwise this would be even more awkward.

Peter stares at him. Elias stares back, his heart hammering in his chest. He wishes he could muster up some kind of brave speech, or at the very least a “fuck off” at the sight of the bastard, but he’s frozen in place as images of Jonah using his body with Peter flash through his head. 

He feels sick. 

Worse, it suddenly occurs to him that Jonah skipped lunch to read over that old letter from Barnabas Bennett—not that he needed to eat much when he could feast upon the fear of others anytime he pleased. The unwitting statement of Barnabas counted, but an empty stomach still caught up to him sooner or later. Elias is just glad he never had to see when Jonah used his more direct abilities. 

The sudden realization that with Jonah gone he’s no longer insulated from Beholding triggers another, stronger wave of revulsion. His ears ring. 

And Peter is still staring, smelling of sea salt, reminding Elias of far too much.

“What?” Elias yells, throwing the pillow aside as he stands. “What is it?!”

“You’re not him,” Peter says simply. “You’re not Jonah Magnus.”

The words hit Elias like a sucker punch. He collapses back onto the couch. So much for bluster—or pretending anything to the contrary.

“Right.” Peter makes a beeline for the well-stocked liquor cabinet in the corner. “I didn’t think so.”

Elias is too dazed to watch him go. He just stares at the ceiling. “How did you know?”

“Elias, er, Jonah—you’ll forgive me if I slip, he didn’t like me calling him that—had his subtle little ways of reminding me he was thinking of me. Of late they were more of a ‘fuck you, my darling’ but your last e-mail neglected to mention anything.”

Elias tracks Peter’s movements by listening to the clinking of glasses and ice. He doesn’t have to look to know Peter selects the most expensive bourbon from the cabinet. Jonah kept it just for him. “I wouldn’t call it a love language,” Peter adds. “The exact opposite, really. The man was impossible to truly connect to, but I suppose that’s why I kept coming back.” He sighs wistfully. “That and... well...”

“What?” Elias throws his arm over the back of the couch and cranes his neck to look over at Peter. “And I don’t want a drink, either.”

The last thing he needs is to be the least bit inebriated around Peter goddamn Lukas.

“Fair enough,” Peter says as he pours. He puts the other glass back. “There was something else about him. An intense feeling of isolation and despair that I’m just now realizing was—”

“Me.”

“Indeed.” Peter moves back to the sitting area, opting to give Elias plenty of space as he takes a seat opposite the couch. Knowing him, Peter would’ve done that regardless. “He assured me you were dead after the transplant. Utterly destroyed along with your eyes.”

Elias picks the discarded throw pillow back up, clutching it tight against his stomach once more. “Well, obviously he lied.”

“Yes, he did that a lot, didn’t he?” Peter takes a large sip of bourbon.

Elias stares at him in bewilderment. “You don’t seem terribly upset that he’s gone.”

“He was a huge drain on the family’s resources, honestly.” 

Peter gazes into the middle distance instead of at Elias. It’s to be expected. For someone who was shagging the Eye’s number one servant, he was never big on eye contact. That’s a Lukas for you. Elias still doesn’t understand how they ended up together in their fucked-up on-again-off-again relationship in the first place. He doesn’t want to know, and he’s exceedingly glad Beholding offers up no fun little bits of trivia.

They sit in silence for a while, the only sound the clink of ice in Peter’s glass as he drinks.

“Tell me something,” Peter says at last. “The entire time... were you...?”

“Aware of what was going on?” Elias nods. “Yeah, I was.”

“I see.” Peter drains the remainder of his glass and stands back up. “Well, then, I’m going to need quite a lot more to drink.”

This time Elias watches him go, frowning. “I don’t see why it’d matter to you...”

“What, given how many people I’ve killed in my lifetime?” Peter retorts, his tone disconcertingly chipper. “Oh, Elias, please. I may be a monster, but I’m not _that_ kind of monster. I do have _some_ scruples, thank you very much.”

Elias’s mouth feels dry. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation. He doesn’t _want_ to be having this conversation. He doesn’t even want Peter here in ‘his’ house.

“Then... what’re you gonna do to make it up to me?”

Peter freezes, caught in the midst of reaching for the bottle. He glances over his shoulder at Elias. Their eyes meet.

“I thought about just tossing you into the Lonely,” Peter says with that same old fake chipper tone, but there’s an edge to it. And right after saying he had scruples, too. “But, much to my surprise, you’re anchored. Not sure how that is, all things considered.”

Elias is just as perplexed, if not relieved to hear it. He thinks back on Jonah’s earlier threats to the Archives staff, about how if he dies, they die, and wonders if that has something to do with it. No way in hell is he saying as much to Peter, lest he get any ideas.

“So,” Peter says brightly, abandoning the liquor and crossing back to Elias. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

There’s no way, Elias wants to say. But that won’t get Peter out of the house.

“I don’t know,” he says, because he genuinely has no idea at first. So he blurts the first, most ludicrous thing that comes to mind. “Buy me weed?”

“Er... Beg pardon?”

“It’s all done by text now, isn’t it?” Elias insists. “I don’t have a hookup for that.”

“Oh, please,” Peter scoffs. “You can Know where any dealer in London is just like _that.”_ He snaps his fingers and, sure enough, a name pops into Elias’s head. Peter catches the surprised look on his face and smirks. “Ah, so you’ve still got his abilities after all.”

“I’ve still got his damn eyes,” Elias snaps. “So of course I do!”

Peter _tsks_. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Hey, don’t forget what you two did to me.” Elias glowers at him. “Because I sure as hell can’t!”

Peter takes a step back, cowed. So he really _does_ have some semblance of a conscience. Elias never considered it possible.

“Just give me a name and an address,” Peter grumbles, the facade of good humor shattered.

Elias tells him and Peter exits via the front door without another word, his head bowed and shoulders slumped. 

Maybe he was too harsh. In all that time, Peter didn’t know the truth. Then again, he apparently still sensed Elias buried under Jonah and liked it, which is just... 

“Gross.” 

Elias shakes his head, a disgusted chill running through him. Avatars. They’re all incredibly messed up. Must be a bar for entry. 

And now Elias is one by default, inheriting it directly from Jonah Magnus since his eyes apparently hold all the power. 

Figures.

Elias is debating about what to do next when Peter returns. No door this time, he just phases back in through the Lonely.

The bag Peter throws on the coffee table is much more than Elias expected—it looks like he robbed the guy of his entire stash of marijuana. One look at the satisfied smile on Peter’s face is all it takes to put two and two together.

“You didn’t,” Elias groans.

He most certainly did.

“I did the world a favor,” Peter crows. “Besides, no one is ever _really_ friends with their dealer, so it’s that much easier for me. You get something, I get something. Win-win, I’d say.”

“This doesn’t even begin to make us even, you know.”

“Oh, I know.” Peter gives him an odd look, impossible to read under the shadow of his captain’s hat. “But I think I’m finally starting to see what he saw in you in the first place now.”

“Get out.”

Peter chuckles, stepping backwards into the Lonely. The cold mist swallows him, leaving no trace, and all Elias can do is hope Peter has more important things to do than lurk invisibly in Jonah’s townhouse while Elias goes about his business. At least he got all the crying out of his system before, though there’s really no way of knowing how long Peter was watching before he finally revealed himself.

Fucking Forsaken. No wonder Peter and Jonah fell in with each other, they were both a couple of creepy voyeurs.

The first thing Elias does is stash felony amount of weed somewhere safe, and then it’s upstairs to the shower he’s been longing for ever since he got control of his body back. He still has to use Jonah’s soaps and shampoo, but the important thing is he can stand there with the hot water scouring his skin pink until it finally runs cold.

Elias steps out of the shower feeling revitalized, which lasts until he wipes away the line of condensation from the bathroom mirror. The pale gray eyes that stare back at him aren’t his own. He’s not surprised, of course, but finally looking at them under his own power hurts. He can’t even remember what color his eyes originally were anymore. Green, maybe? Not bloody gray, that’s all he knows. 

Elias goes through the remaining steps of grooming without looking in the mirror, wrangling Jonah’s old fashioned haircut into something more tolerable as best he can using only his fingers. Ignoring the wide array of brushes and facial creams out of sheer spite feels good. Elias used to be a frantically comb down the worst spots while running out the door sort of chap, none of that waking up at the crack of dawn to methodically treat everything like a ritual bullshit. But of course Jonah Magnus, good fucking riddance, _would_ be the type to love morning rituals, wouldn’t he?

Back into the master bedroom, past the too-large four poster bed, and inside the walk-in closet Elias is presented with the dilemma of a ton of clothes he hates. It’s late enough that he can settle for silk pajamas—why must everything be so goddamn fancy, honestly—and a robe before going to Jonah’s laptop in the office to order new clothes that’ll somehow be delivered the very next day. Buying jeans and t-shirts never felt so damn good. He puts the cleaning service on hold while he’s at it, too. He not only wants to trash the place, he wants it to stay bloody well trashed until he says so.

Feeling accomplished and a little less hopeless, Elias steps out into the hall. The mobile still in his suit jacket rings. It’s important. He hurries downstairs, catching the call just before it goes to voicemail.

“Yes, sorry, what is it?”

There’s a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. Elias was in such a hurry to answer he didn’t check to see who was calling. 

It’s Jon. 

He’s never called Elias before, shouldn’t even have his personal number, but Jonah saved it in his address book anyway because that was just the sort of bastard he was—always gloating, knowing Jon would have to come groveling to him one day.

And Jon, knowing the man he thought Elias was, didn’t expect him to actually answer on the first try, much less apologize upon answering.

“I know you’re on holiday,” Jon says slowly, voice dripping with venom. “And I hate to interrupt that, _really_ , but I have a quick question.”

Elias pinches the bridge of his nose. The truth of what happened after the confrontation and contract signing isn’t exactly something he can tell over the phone, so he settles for just saying, “Go on.”

“Michael found me at the flat I’m currently staying at,” Jon says. “And it brought a gift.”

“Oh god.” Elias sits down on the same chair he threw his coat over. “How bad is it?”

“It’s a person,” Jon replies. “Do you remember Helen Richardson?”

“The one who disappeared immediately after giving her statement?”

“Michael gave her back.” Jon sounds livid, like this is all Elias’s fault somehow. “It said it didn’t want her anymore, and since we got on so well, I might as well take her in. It also mentioned you might be needing a real estate agent soon, whatever that means.”

“Oh.” Elias stares at Jonah’s slippers. Maybe it _is_ his fault after all. “I see.”

“My flatmate’s trying to calm her down now,” Jon continues. “She was in there for... well, it’s hard to say exactly.”

“Jon,” Elias says, stopping him before he goes any further. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m tired, Elias,” Jon replies—and indeed, Elias can hear it in his voice. “I didn’t want Basira dragged into this. Melanie, either. Now G— _my friend_ is dealing with this nonsense, too.”

She already was before, Elias almost says, but stops himself in the nick of time. Goddamn Beholding. Saying ‘at least she’s not under contract’ isn’t going to help matters, either. Elias knows Jon is trying to appeal to his better nature, which wouldn’t have worked with the likes of Jonah Magnus. He would have laughed and hung up, assuming he even answered the phone in the first place.

Elias sighs. He really does want all this to stop, but he’s in no condition to have that conversation right now.

So he’ll just have to be the boss.

“I sincerely didn’t mean for this to happen,” Elias says, noticing the bright yellow door in the fireplace has returned. “But perhaps it’s for the best. Helen Richardson is alive, isn’t she? So I’m afraid you’re just going to have to _help her_ , Jon. She trusts you, after all.”

Better you than me, mate, Elias silently adds. Cause I’ve got way too much of my own shit to deal with at the moment. 

It’s enough that he can manage the Jonah Magnus voice without being sick, but it’s just a matter of channeling his father at his most disappointed. They’re basically the same brand of sanctimonious prick, after all—except one wanted to rule and/or destroy the world. All dear old dad ever wanted was bigger yachts and better European summer homes than the boys at the club.

“But—”

The yellow door slowly creaks open as only one of the Distortion’s doors can. Long, thin fingers curl around it.

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Elias says as he stands. “Its late. I really must go.”

Michael slow claps for his little performance.

“Don’t,” Elias grumbles. “Just don’t. It’s been a long day and apparently we’ve both been very busy.”

“Have we?” Michael tilts its head. “What I did took extremely little effort.”

“Great, so you didn’t eat _one_ person,” Elias says, moving toward the kitchen. He wishes the thought alone killed his appetite, but it doesn’t. “What do you want for it, a medal?”

Michael laughs as it trails after him. “I was never going to _eat_ her. Helen Richardson was a rare and unique opportunity. She was drifting dangerously close to my center, Elias.”

It’s strange hearing the Distortion say his name. It only ever called Jonah by a title, like it does with calling Jon Archivist. Now Elias can’t even remember what that title was as he opens the refrigerator door.

“And what would happen if she reached your center?”

“I would cease to be Michael.”

Elias shuts the door. Michael is leaning in the kitchen doorway, watching him like some strange species of predator. The way it said it was so matter-of-fact, not like it was in pain at all, but it’s hard to tell what the Distortion is feeling—assuming it feels anything at all.

“Damn it,” Elias groans, banging his head against the door. “Sorry. I forgot compelling is apart of this whole package deal.”

Michael shrugs. “I don’t mind telling you these things.”

Elias eyes it uncertainly. Is that a lie? More than likely. Michael just smiles.

“Still.” Elias opens the fridge again, despairing at its contents. The best he can manage is a slapdash charcuterie board that he balances on a plastic serving tray because he can’t be bothered with getting plates—and fuck properly serving it.

Michael follows Elias to sit across from him at the kitchen island. It’s one of the few rooms in the house renovated to meet with modern design standards—the other, thankfully, is the bathroom. If there wasn’t a shower available he’d truly lose it.

While Elias eats, Michael idly nudges a stray grape around the edge of tray instead of so much as pretending to want anything for itself.

“So leaving Helen with Jon,” Elias says around a mouthful of fruit and cheese. “Was that really because they have a connection, or were you just fucking with him?”

“Yes.”

“But he’s not Gertrude.”

“No.”

“So why...” Elias trails off and sighs, giving up. He’s working on piling together a little sandwich when Michael answers of its own accord.

“The Institute took everything from me,” it says. “From Michael, too. More and more lately, I thought only of revenge. But then you came back, and... I didn’t know what to think.”

Elias glances up. All the pieces of meat and cheese he wedged precariously between two crackers slip out of his fingers, leaving him with nothing in his hand besides a lot of crumbs.

“Yeah, well, neither do I,” Elias replies, wiping his hands off. He’s had enough—both of food and this Spiral bullshit. “You are Michael, you aren’t Michael. He’s alive, he’s dead. You’re not a who, you’re a what. I just don’t get it—get _you_ —at all.”

Michael laughs. “Good.”

Elias stands up. He shoves the partially demolished tray back into the fridge and goes back upstairs, not caring if Michael follows or not. It does, making lots of noise on the steps behind him like a proper horror movie monster, and Elias hates that he’s relieved. He doesn’t want to be alone, but it’s sad that this is his only choice of company. 

Elias throws himself face first onto the bed and just lays there for a moment, not moving even as he feels the mattress depress from Michael’s weight. It’s giving him space. Everyone and everything is being so bloody considerate of his delicate situation, Elias could just scream. He rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling instead. It’s getting to be habit, but the fact he can choose to look at whatever the hell he pleases now is something.

He wonders how Jon and Georgie—who was he kidding, trying to conceal her identity—are getting on with Helen. 

Elias blinks, and the entire scene before his eyes changes. He’s no longer looking at a blank ceiling, but instead a strange kitchen—homey, lived in, welcoming—from an odd angle. Everything is huge, including the takeout containers on the kitchen table that he’s... _sniffing?_

“Oh, no you don’t,” Georgie chides, and he’s easily lifted up and away from the small bounty of food and gently deposited on the floor.

Elias blinks and the scene shifts, putting his viewpoint at a more reasonable angle high on the wall looking down. The cat slinks away with his fluffy tail held high, knowing someone—that is to say, Jon—will sneak him a piece or two of chicken later.

“Sharks are circling,” Georgie calls, opening the containers one by one. “And by that I mean the Admiral, so you might want to get in here and eat.”

Jon enters with Helen following close behind him. She looks better than Elias expected for someone trapped in the Distortion’s halls for weeks, but then she’s had some time to clean up since it kicked her out. The ‘What the Ghost’ t-shirt and striped sleep shorts she’s wearing are clearly on loan from Georgie. Her hair is loosely tied back with a scrunchie, and though her eyes are still red from crying, she looks... calm. Content. Much better than Elias himself, who is still a nervous wreck. Maybe that’s the power of having people on your side. Normal people. Or _mostly_ normal, given Jon is slipping further from that definition by the day.

The three sit at the kitchen table, each taking one of the containers for themselves. The Admiral sneaks onto the vacant chair, peeking over the edge of the table, and is allowed to remain and observe so long as he behaves. It’s a very cute domestic scene.

Elias blinks, and he’s staring up at the bedroom ceiling again, his eyes welling with tears. He wishes he had takeout. No, that’s not it. He wishes the entire Archives staff didn’t hate his fucking guts.

Michael hovers into his field of view.

“Ask me a question,” it says.

Elias laughs bitterly and turns his head away, the better to hide his tears. He roughly wipes his eyes. “You’ll only lie. It’s what you do.”

“Not if you compel me to answer honestly, like _you_ do.”

Elias pushes himself up so he and Michael can properly sit face to face. “You can’t be serious.”

Michael’s smile is as impassive as ever.

“You know what?” Elias gets up. “I’m way too sober for this. I just accidentally looked through the eyes of a cat and...”

He waves his hands vaguely. Nope. No point explaining. Less talking, more smoking.

Elias goes straight to a particular shelf in the study where he knows a never used Christmas gift Jonah received from Simon Fairchild is gathering dust. The old fashioned tobacco pipe with its deep bowl isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing in the absence of rolling papers. Elias can get better gear later, like something that actually has a carb. If he thought about it, he could’ve ordered that online, too.

“Did you know he had Leitners of his own?” Michael asks, running its finger along the spine of a particular book on the shelf. 

“Something else to burn later,” Elias mutters, snapping the wooden box containing the pipe closed. He slips past Michael as it giggles something about driving the collector’s value up with a pipe—he really wishes he didn’t hear even that much, and retrieves just enough weed from the bag downstairs to hopefully turn his brain off for a bit. 

Elias looks the living room over, considering, and decides if he’s going to sell everything off he’s going to have to go out into the garden to smoke.

“Oh, how quaint,” Michael remarks upon following him outside. “I especially like the classical statues.”

It would. They’re all replicas. Fakes.

“He’s never set foot out here, as far as I can remember,” Elias replies. “Hell, he rarely even left the Institute if he could help it.”

Nevertheless, everything in the garden is immaculately maintained. Shit, then that means there’s a gardener to contact, too. 

Later, worry about it later.

Elias takes a seat on an iron bench that, like everything else in the house, is a genuine antique. There’s lots of history in and around the house that Elias doesn’t care to know.

Michael sits too close beside him. Elias shoots it a look, but doesn’t bother saying anything. Michael sits with its hands folded and long legs splayed out in front of it, admiring the garden at night while Elias focuses on the arduous packing and lighting a pipe not meant for marijuana. When he finally gets it going, sucking in that first glorious bit of smoke, Michael speaks.

“You could’ve just kissed back then,” it says, watching the rose bushes sway in the slight breeze. “Dropped the pretense. Michael would’ve gladly said yes.”

Elias chokes. He doubles over, coughing and hacking, nearly dropping the pipe in the process. Michael pats him on the back, too lightly to be of any help, until the fit finally passes.

“You unbelievable bastard,” Elias wheezes as he sits back up.

“What?” Michael giggles. “It’s true, _and_ I gave you that one for free.”

“Maybe so.” Elias brandishes the tobacco pipe at it. “But your timing is absolutely shit.”

Michael tries to look innocent and fails. “It only just occurred to me.”

“Just shut up for a minute and let me do this.” Elias scowls as he concentrates on relighting the bowl. “It’s been a while and I need to focus.”

The other thing about that—it doesn’t take much for him to get a good buzz going. Elias sits back, exhaling the smoke with a sigh.

He double takes when Michael holds its hand out.

“Can you even get high?”

“Probably not,” Michael concedes. “But it’s rude not to share.”

Elias rolls his eyes and passes the pipe, marveling as the smoke ring Michael blows twists into a spiral before dissipating.

“Cute trick.”

“Isn’t it just?” 

Michael passes the pipe back.

Elias waits until he’s absolutely sure it’s not going to drop another bombshell on him before taking another drag. Michael seems to be ignoring him now, its attention on the light pollution reflecting off the hazy night sky. 

“I still don’t understand where Michael ends and the Distortion begins,” Elias says.

“Neither do I,” it replies, not looking away from the clouds. It giggles, but there’s an unmistakable sadness somewhere in the layers of the echoes. Bitterness, too. “But I’m getting used to it.”

Finally, Michael looks at him with its swirling, luminescent eyes. “Ask your questions, Elias.” It snickers. “Just make sure they’re the right ones.”

Elias gestures it wait a moment. Michael harrumphs and crosses its arms.

Elias smokes while he thinks about it, and at long last he no longer feels choked by anxiety. He doesn’t mind that the monster sitting next to him is wearing the face of his ex co-worker and crush, or the fact everyone who works under him wants to kill him. It doesn’t even matter that the eyes in his head belong to a centuries old dead man. 

It’s fine. He’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Questions,” Elias exhales the word with a plume of smoke. Right, they can have a lot of power with Beholding. He has a lot of power now. Scary stuff.

He turns to Michael. “Why don’t you need Helen anymore?”

Michael laughs and claps its hands with delight. A good question—because if Elias asked why it let her go it could have dodged the issue while still technically telling the truth.

“Being Michael was becoming too much of a burden,” it says. “So much rage, and revenge was denied with the previous Archivist’s untimely shotgunning.” It giggles, knowing Elias will appreciate the double entendre. “But the new Archivist is unprotected and clueless, so easy to toy with... the only trouble is his assistants.”

“You feel for them,” Elias says without thinking.

“It doesn’t matter,” Michael snaps, suddenly bristling with anger. Ah, there’s that rage. “They’re doomed. It’s all going to happen like it did before. It’s already happening.” Michael claws at nothing. “The Institute takes everything. Destroys everything.” It runs its fingers through its hair, its speech becoming halting as it seemingly begins to run out of steam. “This... _fixation_... it’s unsightly. It’s not... _me_. It’s Michael’s. So I thought... if I can no longer smile... because of _him_ , then perhaps it’s time for a _new_ face... but then...”

“What?” Elias leans closer. “What then?”

Michael looks up. Its face is very close. There are tears in its eyes.

“ _You_ came back,” it whispers, and pulls Elias into a kiss without warning. 

The sensation is bizarre, like licking a battery, and its not just because Elias is high.

The tobacco pipe clatters to the ground, showering sparks against the cobblestones. Elias pushes against Michael’s chest as he sees a swirl of colors he can’t even begin to name. His hand goes to his lips as soon as it lets him go, half expecting to find them melted, but no, they’re just numb and tingling from the kiss.

“S-Sorry,” Michael whispers, sounding unnervingly like Michael Shelley for a moment, until takes a breath, exhales, and it’s as if a switch is flipped back to the Distortion. “Existing with that particular regret was torture, believe me.”

“You could have just asked, damn it!” Elias yells, his voice echoing around the garden walls.

“So could you,” Michael deadpans, the smile back on its face. “But you never did.”

Elias shakes his head. “No, wait, hold it. Jonah Magnus still would’ve fucked everything up no matter what we did back then.”

“But he’s gone now,” Michael retorts. “Dead.”

“And you’re...” Elias traces a spiral in the air.

“So?” Michael tilts its head. “I can deal with _these_ emotions better than Michael’s rage.”

“Don’t tell me...” Elias picks the pipe up off the ground. It’s burnt out again, but he’s had more than enough. He focuses his bleary gaze on Michael. “It’s... y’know... a lot’s changed. You, me, everything.”

It’s all pretty fucked up, that’s what.

“Oh, Elias,” Michael laughs. “Neither of us is the same person anymore. But it’s because of you that I want to try _being_ a person again.”

”That’s, uh...” Is it asking him out? Elias would panic if he were sober, but as it is he’s too fucking high to think straight, let alone formulate a proper response. He nods like his head might snap off at any moment.

“Sure. Cool. That’s cool.”

He is so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: The first time I heard pipe murder referenced, I pictured a tobacco pipe and was very confused, so Elias being forced to make do with smoking weed out of one (possible but not great) is my tribute to that misunderstanding.

**Author's Note:**

> Sincere apologies to Sasha this go round, but my other long fic, [Please Don’t Eat the Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794887/chapters/59962765) fixes that. I decided to tackle this from a different angle since I’ve already done the whole Archivist Role Swap thing.


End file.
